


Four Times Aramis Flinched (And One Time He Didn't)

by Donna_Immaculata



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Brotherly Bonding, Disturbing Themes, Episode: s01e04 The Good Soldier, Episode: s01e06 The Exiles, Friendship, Gen, Gun Kink, Kink Meme, Motherhood, Post-Series, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-30
Updated: 2014-07-15
Packaged: 2018-02-06 22:21:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1874601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Donna_Immaculata/pseuds/Donna_Immaculata
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Part 1: Wherein Porthos and Aramis track down a man by order of the King.<br/>Part 2: Wherein Marsac falls victim to a pagan god.<br/>Part 3: Wherein Aramis conducts a lady to safety.<br/>Part 4: Wherein Athos, Porthos and Aramis are having a gay old time.<br/>Part 5: Wherein Milady entertains a gentleman caller.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Poppy Wine

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [kinkmeme](http://bbcmusketeerskink.dreamwidth.org) challenge, for the prompt:
> 
>  _5 times Aramis flinched,_ which I modified slightly.

At high noon, the bare spot of ground by the foot of the convent of the Carmes Dechausses is shrouded in the gauze of shimmering heat. Shadows lurk in the corners, tucked in tightly into the flanks of the stone walls, and Porthos wishes he could tuck himself in likewise, get away from the glare of the sun. It’s too hot, his collar it too high, and he’s not sure if he trusts the man with whom he has been sent on this mission. He shoots a side glance at Aramis, who has found a flat stone to sit on, leaning against the wall. His face looks quite calm, but his fingers are plucking at the plume of the hat he holds dangling between his knees. Porthos clears his throat and Aramis looks up at him.

“Are you sure he’ll be here soon?”

“He’ll come.” Aramis’ voice is confident enough. Porthos doesn’t know him well enough yet to have learned if the confidence is real or assumed.

“Are we going to pay or threaten him?”

“Whatever it takes.”

Aramis falls silent again, and Porthos regards him thoughtfully. From what he’s seen so far, there’s more to the man than would appear at first glance. Porthos saw him spar and he saw him shoot, and, perhaps most importantly, he has Aramis to thank for the fact that his right arm is as agile and powerful as it ever was. It was in the middle of a skirmish, with guns firing and swords clashing around them, that Aramis stitched the gash on his upper arm and stilled the incessant stream of blood. It was some of the finest and fastest stitching Porthos had ever seen; Aramis only halted once and that was to shoot a man. Such an admirable display of sangfroid should have been enough to win Porthos’ heart, but he doesn’t quite trust the flowery words, the perfumed hair and the air of libertine ease which Aramis flaunts like he might a domino costume at a masquerade.

He spots movement out of the corner of his eye, and a cloaked figure slinks down the path, crooked and with its hat pulled firmly over its eyes. The man could not look more conspicuous if he tried, but Porthos recognises the desperate, hungry air that clings to him. He’d recognise it anywhere, it is the shape of a man who has nothing to lose and is willing to sell his soul to the devil to buy his next meal and postpone the inevitable for another day.

“Pay,” he says under his breath to Aramis, just as Aramis says:

“Did you bring any money?”

They exchange a look. “Threaten it is, then,” Porthos agrees with the silent verdict.

Aramis stands and puts on his hat. “Bonjour, my friend,” he says, while Porthos braces himself, straightens his shoulders, lifts his chin, puts his hand on the pommel of his sword. He does all this slowly, deliberately, in full knowledge that the half-starved and probably more than half-mad creature before him takes it all in, feels the power radiating from him. 

Aramis strides over to the man and leans in to peer under the brim of his hat. “It’s good of you to meet us,” he says pleasantly, while Porthos shifts his weight, takes a step to the side so that he’s now standing behind the man. “I hear you can tell us something about the whereabouts of a man called Bois-Guilbert?”

“Jean-Baptiste de Bois-Guilbert,” Porthos supplies and watches the man’s shoulders stiffen.

“How much?” a hoarse whisper from beneath the hat.

“Oh, let’s see,” Aramis smiles and exchanges a look with Porthos over the man’s shoulder. “How about: your life?”

“You can’t do that,” the man croaks. “It’d be murder.”

“ _We_ wouldn’t,” Porthos says, steps forward and lays a hand on the man’s shoulder. He feels bones so brittle they might be a bird’s and not much else. “The law would. And it wouldn’t be murder if you were killed by the law, would it?”

“Surely, you wouldn’t want to call His Majesty a murderer. Or His Eminence.” Aramis is looking down at the man with an expression of wide-eyed sincerity on his face.

Porthos feels the bird-like frame tremble under his fingers and he loosens his grip lest the bones should shatter in his hand. He leans in and whispers: “For that would be treason.”

“Rue Guérin-Boisseau!” A desperate cry tears from the man’s throat. “The Court of the Blind in the rue Guérin-Boisseau.”

“Thank you,” Aramis says. “Now, if you could only lead us there…”

Porthos lets go of the shoulder and moves his arm quickly to catch the stumbling figure by the elbow. “No need,” he says and pats the man on the back, very gently. “I know where it is.”

He notices Aramis’ quizzical look even as he turns away, but Aramis doesn’t ask. They soon fall in step together. Porthos knows that the man has vanished, gone the moment they turned their backs on him.

“You did give him money after all,” he says to Aramis as they make their way down the rue de Vaugirard, walking towards the Seine.

“I unexpectedly found some change in my pocket.”

“I should be so lucky.”

“Do you think we’ll find him?” Aramis asks.

“If he is where our friend said that he is, we will find him.” He takes off his hat and wipes off his forehead with the back of his kid-leather glove. “Only question is why is he hiding away there? Why not go to the King and claim what’s rightfully his?”

“Perhaps matters are more complicated than we were led to believe.”

“There’s no perhaps about it. But if he really is the rightful heir to a colony-”

“It’s only one island.”

“ _Only_ one island. Do you come across West Indian islands as easily as across unexpected change in your pocket?”

Aramis laughs. “What I mean is that perhaps the price it too high. His father was granted that land by the Spanish Crown for services rendered. These are no good times to be known as having rendered services to the Spanish.”

“Why has he come to Paris, then?”

“That, my friend,” Aramis pats Porthos’ shoulderblade and leaves his hand there, fingers curled loosely over the swell of his shoulder, “is precisely what we are going to ask him.”

The shadows are taller here, as they approach the great cul-de-sac that is Fief d’Alby. Every cobblestone feels familiar beneath the soles of his boots. It’s an illusion, of course it is; even if he knew those streets once like the back of his hand, he has grown apart, and the streets have changed. But he knows his way around still, the alleyways suck him in and spit him out at just the right corners, and the mud on the ground and the smell of grease and smoke in the air are like the embrace of long-lost brothers. 

It’s not a court, the Court of the Blind: a dark staircase, a suffocating journey along a narrow passage, silhouettes of men skulking in all corners that could kill them easily. But they won’t, because even if they’ve never met Porthos, they recognise him for what he is. The musketeer’s uniform offers no protection here; Porthos’ stance does. He shoves the rags aside that separate one room from another and steps over the threshold. He doesn’t look over his shoulder to check if Aramis is still behind him. He knows him to be there.

A whispered conversation with a human shape of which he can barely tell if it’s male or female, Aramis’ gloved hand appearing in his field of vision, the gleam of silver as money changes hands, and they are led down another passage, into another room, and the stink here is so that even Porthos’ head begins to swim. He notices Aramis’ hand twitch towards the pocket in which he keeps his perfumed handkerchief, watches Aramis resist the temptation to pull it out and bury his nose in it. He’s breathing through his mouth, but so is Porthos.

“He’s ill,” the male-or-female shape croaks.

“What’s ailing him?” For the first time since they entered the court, Aramis outpaces Porthos, pushing himself past him and past their guide, and he kneels down by the lair of straw and rags. He tugs at the corner of what looks like a burlap sack, leaning in in an attempt to get a look at the figure concealed under layers of filth and shadows, and the stink becomes so overwhelming that Porthos’ eyes water. An arm reaches out from the gloom, and Aramis recoils, flinches away from whatever it is he found there, throws himself back with his entire body and staggers into the wall. He regains his equilibrium momentarily, but his control is lost. Aramis pulls out his handkerchief, presses it to his face and hurls himself through the door through which they entered not five minutes ago.

Porthos hesitates for a split second, but he has to know, and running after Aramis will achieve nothing. If anything it might do more harm than good. He kneels down and uncovers the body. He has to see for himself.

He finds Aramis sitting on the steps outside, breathing like a man who has run across all of Paris. After the bracken miasma inside, the air here tastes fresh and crisp, and Porthos gulps in great mouthfuls, seating himself beside Aramis.

“Leprosy,” he says, not looking at Aramis but into the distance.

“I’m sorry,” Aramis offers. “I couldn’t… I didn’t… I put us both in danger.”

“Nah, it’s all right.” Porthos pats him on the knee. “I think they found it quite funny, actually.”

“Oh, good.” Aramis flashes a faint half-smile. He’s very pale, but he’s regained his vigour. “I would have hated to see such an excellent display of the _commedia dell’arte_ go to waste.”

Porthos laughs, but his mirth subsides as another figure appears on top of the stairs, pushes past them, exchanges a nod with Porthos, runs down the steps and disappears around a corner.

“I’ve never seen it up close, you know,” Aramis says, obviously convinced that he has to apologise, to justify his lapse of control. “And there’s nothing I could’ve done.”

“Of course not.” Porthos has seen it up close. “Our Lord is the only one who could’ve helped him, there was barely any flesh left on his bones.”

“What are we going to tell His Majesty now?” Aramis says in a faraway voice. Porthos guesses that he wants to talk, because he doesn’t want to think. It’s one thing to see men struck down at the battlefield, it’s quite another to see a fellow human creature struck down by the merciless hand of a higher being, God or Devil, Porthos isn’t sure.

“That we’ve found him. Dead.”

Aramis nods and, without looking at Porthos, asks softly: “Is he?”

Porthos doesn’t answer straightaway, choosing his words carefully. “I know someone who’ll give him poppy wine. A strong draught.”

Aramis nods again and lapses into silence. They sit side by side for the span of several heartbeats, each lost in his own thoughts. Then, Aramis gets to his feet and says in a light voice: “Well then. We’d better had back and report to the Captain. Without a French heir, the island will default to the Spanish Crown. The King won’t be happy.”

“Good thing than that it’s not us who have to report to His Majesty in person, then” says Porthos and stands likewise. They weave their way back through the alleyways, their steps lighter and lighter as they walk along in the shadows of hunchbacked houses, and Porthos looks up in an attempt to catch a glimpse of the sky and longs for the sun. “What’s the name of the island again?” he asks all of a sudden.

“Chacachacare.”

“Sounds Spanish to me anyway.”

Aramis raises his eyebrows. “The King will be disappointed,” he reiterates, but with a catlike smile that makes him look almost as if he enjoyed it.

Porthos shrugs. “One place less where France makes her hands dirty, using stolen labour.”

Aramis shoots a quick glance at Porthos’ hand as it curls into a fist against his thigh, then at his face. “You feel very deeply about that, don’t you?” he says and the lilt in his voice is unmistakable.

Porthos smiles grimly. “My mother,” he says in a hard voice. “That’s what you’re asking, isn’t it?” 

Aramis takes his hat off, glances skyward and then looks Porthos straight in the eye. “I was trying to put it discreetly,” he says.

Porthos laughs. “Don’t worry about that, friend,” he says. “I’m not some fine lady you’re trying to woo. You can always talk straight with me.”

Aramis smiles, with his mouth and his eyes, puts the hat back on and presses a hand to his chest. “I shall, then,” he says.


	2. The Blood of the Covenant

It’s always summer when Marsac goes back to the house of his birth. The sun is warmer here, dissipating a softer warmth than the one in Paris, and the air is balmy and mild. He wades through a meadow of pheasant's eyes, cornflowers, corncockles and Venus’ looking glasses. And poppies, always poppies, their deep crimson like a lake of blood under his feet, and he sees the house in the distance. The windows are winking at him as he approaches, and he knows, he knows that he’s got to reach the house before the sun sets, and he quickens his pace, but his limbs are weighing him down, and he stumbles over a root and his foot slips into a puddle. The water is icy cold, despite the summer heat. Marsac drags his foot out with an almighty effort, gasps and shivers awake. In the freezing tent, his cloak has slipped off his legs. Aramis is curled up against him; he can’t see him in the darkness, but he feels the up-and-down of his ribcage under his arm, the in-and-out of his breath on his neck and the thump-thump-thump of his heart beneath his wrist. It’s safe and comfortable and oh so familiar. Marsac has no wish to move, but the cold is soaking his flesh and he doesn’t want to suffer frostbites for the sake of Aramis’ undisturbed sleep. His love for his brother-in-arms does not go that far.

He lifts his arm from where is rests on Aramis’ chest, grimacing as he hears Aramis’ mutter something in his sleep. Perhaps he can manage to tuck himself back in without waking his friend, Aramis is a sound sleeper and he knows he doesn’t have to be on his guard tonight.

A clink of metal, a rustle of canvas and something that might be a muffled cry reach his brain almost without penetrating his ears. Marsac freezes in mid-motion and Aramis, his soldier’s instincts honed, wakes. “What-” he breathes, but already is Marsac’s hand crashing down on his mouth. Marsac shakes his head without a sound. Their both bodies are taut like harpsichord springs, about to vibrate into life. Marsac lets go of Aramis and, silent like serpents, they both slither to grab their boots and weapons.

Half a heartbeat later, the soft thud that bothered Marsac’s ears solidifies into footsteps. The canvas above their heads is slashed apart and Marsac thrusts up his main-gauche, impaling a masked face just below the chin until he sees the tip emerge through the man’s mouth. The blood that drips down at him is black like pitch boiled in the barrels of hell. Beside him, Aramis, half-lying and tugging up his boots, fires his arquebus. Another man goes down, but the shot has alerted the other assailants to the danger, and several dark shapes descend on them like carrion crows. Aramis throws down his arquebus and grabs Marsac’s, fires again, hits his target straight in the chest, seizes his sword and rolls out of the tent and into the snow.

The waxing moon that hovers between the treetops is not sufficient to illuminate the scene. Even without being able to see all their attackers, Marsac senses their overbearing presence, knows that there are too many for them to fend off. He parries a strike so powerful that it forces him to his knees and rams his main-gauche into the man’s side, piercing his liver. He senses Aramis behind him, and manoeuvres himself so that they are back to back. Protecting each other where they are most vulnerable.

Even as Marsac attacks and parries, he is listening to the sound of blades clashing behind him. As long as he can hear it, he knows that Aramis is still fighting, is still alive. Aramis is more skilled with the gun than with the sword, and Marsac makes a vow in his heart that he will teach him all that he knows, that he will practise with him every day, that he will push Aramis to his very limits if only they get out of here.

They won’t. The enemy is too strong, too numerous. Too well prepared. Too determined to murder them, every single one of them, not in rage, not in revenge, but in coldblooded calculation. “Who are you?” he snarls at the man who is doing his best to impale him on his blade. “Show yourself, you coward! Show me your face!” He can’t bear the idea of dying without knowing at whose hand.

A large man, a man whom he has noticed from the corner of his eye, an ever-looming presence in this knacker’s yard of a battleground, comes fully into view. Marsac is exhausted, fighting two men at once now, but he will take on this one as well. Then, Aramis glides onto the stage out of nowhere and sinks the length of his blade into the man’s back. The outcry that reverberates through the woods tells him that his instinct was right, that man has led the attack, and his spirits soar. Once the leader’s taken out, a company falls into disarray. The musketeers might have a chance to fight the men back, especially since there are others still alive. He spots Lesseps, barefoot and wielding both sword and dagger, advance at a huge brute of a man, whilst Gondrin has forced his opponent down to his knees and readies himself to strike the lethal blow. Marsac’s heart sings. His brothers will not fail him, they will not fail each other, they will push the enemy back and they will stand victorious.

Lesseps’ head comes flying through the air and crashes into a tree trunk. The huge brute has blown it off his shoulders with one stroke of his axe. This is not a gentleman’s weapon, this is not a gentleman, this is a butcher, an executioner, a creature unworthy to cross blades with a nobleman like Lesseps. It’s a peasants’ revolt, and they’re doomed. Peasants will not surrender their weapons because their captain is dead. They know nothing of honour, of rules of engagement. They’re not better than beasts of the forest, and they will slaughter them like they slaughter pigs and horses for meat.

And then, the worst happens. Just as Marsac pulls out his blade from his opponent’s stomach, a cry and a thud make his blood run cold. Aramis falls facedown to the ground, and a trickle of blood blackens the snow beneath his head. Marsac doesn’t cry out; he drops to his knees beside his brother’s body, turns him over and watches the dark eyes, like hollows in a white mask, flutter shut. His forehead, his temple are smeared with blood. Marsac doesn’t think; he pulls up the body, stiff and pliant at the same time, and half-drags, half-carries it towards the shelter of the trees. He crawls into their shadows as if into a house of worship, the woods are the chapel in which he will speak his prayers tonight.

The sash around his middle is quickly unwrapped and torn to pieces. He uses it to still the flow of blood, to wipe off the blood that clings to Aramis’ face like smut. Aramis is flickering on and off, Marsac can tell. His eyes are mostly open, but he doesn’t speak, doesn’t answer when Marsac talks to him, whispering nonsensical words of love and brotherhood and never fear and all will be well, and if not for the tree against which Marsac has propped him up, he’d slide to the ground.

As soon as he’s finished wrapping the makeshift bandage around Aramis’ head, Marsac takes a handful of snow and rubs it into Aramis’ temples. This seems to revive him, and Marsac scoops up more snow and carries it to Aramis’ lips, forces some into his mouth. Aramis coughs, but then he swallows. Marsac licks the rest off his palm and relishes how it melts into water in his mouth, how the simple sip of water reanimates his spirits.

Aramis jerks forward and Marsac steadies him with a hand to his chest. “Stay,” he whispers.

“Who are they?” Aramis whispers back, his eyes fixed on something behind Marsac.

Marsac shakes his head. “Butchers. Animals,” he says.

“Surely they can’t be both at the same time,” Aramis points out, in a perverse display of logic and wit.

“Stay here, Aramis.” Marsac emphasises the command by pressing him more firmly back against the tree. Aramis glares at him, but the silent threat is wasted on Marsac. “You’re injured,” he says. “Stay here, don’t move. I’ll go.”

He stands, but so does Aramis. “We’ll go together.” Aramis closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, and another one. To stop his head spinning, Marsac knows. He’s not in pain yet, the pain will come later. It will happen upon him when the rush of blood has quietened down. By that time they will both be dead. “All for one, remember?”

Marsac smiles at those words, their simplicity, naivité even. They’re good words, honourable and befitting men like them: they are all this, until they mean that the life of your dearest friend is forfeit.

“And one for all,” he answers and clasps Aramis’ hand.

They creep back the way they had come, led by sound rather than by sight. Aramis emerges first from the undergrowth. He straightens his back, takes a breath that will have to carry him through the ordeal to come. His last breath, thinks Marsac, fondly but also sadly, because it is a sad thing to know that you’re about to watch your brother die, that you’re about to fall dead by his side. Aramis reaches behind and clasps Marsac’s hand again, just for a second. He crosses himself and takes a step into the clearing.

There’s a flash of light, an almighty crash, the bark of the tree next to Aramis explodes like Chinese fireworks, sending splinters flying in all directions. Aramis drops his sword, throws his arms up, covers his face and head, ducks, recoils and stumbles back into the trees. It was an errant shot, Marsac is sure of it. Nobody could have possibly seen them sneaking out of the woods like ghosts. It’s not the ball that makes his blood run cold, nor the deadly enemy who awaits him amongst the slain bodies of musketeers.

It is the sight of Aramis recoiling bodily from a pistol shot. It is the sight of something so incongruous, so impossible that he’s never even given it any thought. In all those years that they have known each other, he has not once seen Aramis flinch from a musket ball, the point of a blade or another man’s fist. It occurs to him that it’s not the musket that is Aramis’ biggest weapon; it’s his confidence, the air of invulnerability in which he has shrouded himself.

That shroud torn, Aramis is but a mortal man. Marsac loves him even more dearly for it, but it tears at his heart, it scares him more than anything else through which he has lived this night has scared him. He, too, ducks into the undergrowth and follows Aramis, desperate to find him for their both sake. The noise of the battle has subsided, or perhaps he doesn’t hear it anymore from where he has hidden, where Aramis has hidden. It doesn’t matter either way. Aramis is sitting in the snow, resting his folded arms on his pulled-up knees and his forehead on his arms. Around him, shadows sway and shift, and there’s a hush in the air that precedes dawn. This is the darkest hour of the night, and Marsac shivers with a fear that is not of this earth. It is the fear poured into the hearts of men by forests and darkness, the mind-numbing, soul-crushing terror of the god Pan and his creatures; the dread that descends upon even the most rational of men once they encounter the goblins and daemons that dwell in the roots and souls of trees. It is the Panic fear of the Ancients that makes his heart swell in his chest until he can’t breathe. 

“Aramis,” he croaks, before his mind succumbs to the fog completely. “Aramis.” He drops to the ground by Aramis’ side and puts both arms around his injured brother-in-arms. Aramis is very still, and whatever there is left of Marsac’s heart and thoughts, it is all directed towards his brother. He has to keep him alive, this is all he knows, and he clambers around Aramis’ body, pulls him underneath the overhanging branches of a fir and shoves and tugs and heaves fallen branches to build a dry nest for them to spend the night in. He’s turning into an animal, like those men who came to slaughter him. He doesn’t think, he’s building a nest, a den, like the meanest creature of the forest, to hide away, to survive the night, to see the dawn of another day. When he falls, he clutches Aramis like a lifeline. Aramis, whose solid weight serves as a shield. Aramis is shivering, and so is Marsac, and they shiver into each other, until Morpheus descends upon Marsac and delivers him from Pan’s scorn.

~*~ 

The sun rises pale and cold on this Easter Saturday. The snow under his feet is crimson with blood, like a meadow of poppies. Aramis, white-faced and wild-eyed, is talking, but Marsac doesn’t hear. His ears are pounding with the rush of blood, his head is filled with oakum and his mouth with bile. He rips off those remnants of the uniform that still cling to him and stumbles backward into the woods. He can see Aramis forming words and he knows that if he could hear them, they would be his salvation, but he can’t. All that he can hear is the laughter of the god Pan, high-pitched and mocking like the snicker of goats. 


	3. Mother to a King

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The episode never states where exactly they are when Marie de’ Medici’s men catch up with them. Aramis tells the sleazy transport manager “The rest when my friends are on their way to Spain” when he hands over the money, but for the sake of logic I’ve got to assume that that’s a ruse. There’s no reason why he should tell the guy Agnes’ final destination (it’s not like he runs a nation-wide service and she’s boarding a mail coach that goes from Paris straight to Bilbao) unless he wanted that information to get passed on to her pursuers. France and Spain are at war, the Spanish border is 900 km away, Agnes doesn’t speak any Spanish (or, for that matter, any dialects apart from her own, and the dialects in different parts of France were essentially different languages), the money she’s likely to have on her won’t pay for the journey, never mind for starting a new life in a foreign (and hostile) country. I know his plan was supposed to be not thought through, but not completely idiotic, surely? So, I’m using bits of book canon to make it slightly less stupid.

_Ave Maria, gratia plena,_  
 _Dominus tecum._  
 _Benedicta tu in mulieribus,_  
 _et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus._

The beads of her rosary roll between her fingers, lighter and smoother than they did yesterday.

_Sancta Maria, Mater Dei,_

Yesterday, she prayed for comfort.

_ora pro nobis peccatoribus_  
 _nunc et in hora mortis nostrae._

Today, she prays for joy.

_Amen._

Agnes would pray to God, to thank Him that Henri was returned to her, but that doesn’t seem right. He sent His only Son to die for our sins. Agnes would willingly die in her son’s place. Truly, the Holy Virgin, the Holy Mother who suffered and who wept for her son understands her prayers. Understands the joy that fills her out like liquid light, that makes her heart brim over with song. She’s rolling the beads between the fingers of her right hand, the prayer hand, but her left hand, the hand closer to the heart, is touching her son, always. His little hands with fingers that are so much stronger today than they were two days ago; his nose that is just like Philippe’s; his hair that is softer than gossamer; his tummy that is full of the milk with which her breasts swelled for two days; his kicking little legs that soon will carry him around and then, one day, away from her. But no, she’ll never let that happen.

Mme Bonacieux has brought her a dish of what she says is oxtail soup, seasoned generously with dill. “The Huguenots came up with the recipe,” she tells Agnes. “But it’s good.” Agnes is eating it with one hand, holding fast to her son, and she knows that from now on happiness will always smell of dill.

The sound of heavy boots reaches her from the hall, and she recognises the step even though she’s only known the man for a few days. Aramis enters the room, his hat in his hand, and Agnes beams at him, she beams at everything on this glorious afternoon. Her smile dies between one beat of her heart and the next. One look at his face is sufficient, and she drops the dish and clasps her son to her breast. “No,” she whispers.

“Agnes,” he says, darting a quick glance around the room, as though expecting any assailants to stand concealed behind a cabinet, behind the drapes. “We must leave. At once. Get ready. I’ve got to write two letters, when I’m done we’re leaving.”

She’s staring at him, and her world is narrowing down, the light that was filling out the room only minutes ago is fading fast, the edges of her vision are blurring. She’s staring down a tunnel, its black walls closing down on her, and Aramis is standing on the other end, too far to reach and impossible to understand. Her son gives a pained cry and she realises that she’s clutching him too tightly.

“Agnes!” Aramis has crossed the short distance between them, thrown himself on the bench beside her and is holding her by the shoulders. He looks very much as if he wanted to shake her, but he doesn’t. Instead, he takes a deep breath and, in a voice that’s quivering with impatience and fear, grinds out: “Do you understand what I’m saying? You’ve got to get ready. At once.” She’s staring at him, and he’s glaring back. “Go!” he says, stands and pulls her up with him. “I’ll wait.”

The next minutes are an agony of trembling hands, worried whispers, running feet, as Mme Bonacieux helps her pack her meagre belongings, whilst her baby is crying at her breast and Aramis is scribbling furiously. When he’s finished, he sprinkles sand on the ink, folds one letter, then another one, seals them and strides out of the room. She hears him talking outside in a clipped voice, a soldier’s voice; he’s giving orders, to whom, she doesn’t know.

“He’s brought a boy with him,” Mme Bonacieux whispers. She has noticed Agnes’ worried glance. “A messenger, he said. He didn’t explain, and frankly, I don’t want to know.”

Agnes doesn’t want to know, either. It’s her future that is at stake, and her son’s, but it’s too much, and she can’t take any more in today. Her thoughts are fraught and her soul is brittle, and she fears both will shatter like glass if she’s not careful. To think that she was so happy not half an hour ago. A veil has appeared between her and the world that surrounds her, dimming everything out but the bright ray that is the babe in her arms.

Aramis is waiting, impatience carved into every line of his body. He’s tapping his hat against his leg, rubbing his neck with his other hand. Agnes has seen a hunt once, and Aramis appears to her just like one of those slinky pedigree hounds straining on his handler’s lead.

“Come,” he says. And: “Thank you, Madame. I am, once again, in your debt,” with a bow to Mme Bonacieux, whose expression of anguish Agnes is not likely to ever forget.

“Where are we going,” Agnes asks after they left the Quartier Latin behind and are walking westward along the rue de Vaugirard. Despite the heat, Aramis has ordered her to pull the hood of her cape over her head. She’s walking between him and his horse, and he’s leading them both. Around them, Parisian life seethes and bubbles like stew in a cauldron. Agnes walks through it as though through a dream.

“Not now,” he says curtly. “Just… walk. Please.”

Agnes is walking. The heat presses down at her, and her arms are numb from the weight of her son, but she is walking and she will walk to the end of the world. But surely, surely, Agnes begins to think as they continue down the road and she feels Aramis gradually relax, surely that won’t be necessary.

“I want to go home,” she says. She tries to say it commandingly, but exhaustion and fear have rendered her voice feeble, like a child’s. This is ridiculous. She is a mother, not a child, and he will not treat her like one.

“Aramis!” she halts, forcing him to halt also. “Enough! Tell me where you’re bringing me. Tell me what’s going on!”

Despite herself her voice has risen to a desperate wail, and Henri begins to cry. She shushes him, kisses his eyes, his cheeks, rocks him in her arms. Aramis looms over her, shielding her from view with his cloak and his body.

“I just want to go home,” she repeats, keeping her voice quiet, sharpening it like the edge of a blade. “Take me home, Aramis.”

A shadow passes across his face, bruises his eyes. “I can’t, Agnes,” he says, and she hates the pain in his voice. “I swear on my honour, I can’t take you home. You’ve got to trust me. Please.”

She nods. What else is she to do? Henri is writhing in her arms, whimpering. He’s such a big boy now, he’ll soon be too heavy for her. But no, she’ll always find the strength to carry him. 

“Do you want me to take him?” Aramis asks, and it’s in such a curious tone, he’s sounding so much like a boy, that she can’t help smiling.

“No,” she says. “He needs changing.”

“We’ll be at the city gates soon, we can stop outside.”

There are guards at the gate, but they’re not concerning themselves with a musketeer escorting a – a what? It occurs to Agnes for the first time to ask herself that question. What do all those people whom they pass, the people who see them together think that she is to Aramis? His wife? She casts a quick glance at him. His eyes are fixed at the horizon.

Agnes isn’t naïve enough to believe that anyone could mistake her for his wife. It is far more likely that she is taken for his mistress and Henri for- She can’t finish the thought, it’s too disgraceful. 

She wonders, for the first time, if that is what he wants.

She changes Henri in the shade of an apple tree at the edge of a village. Aramis has fetched water from the well, a whole bucket full, so that she can give Henri a quick wash. Aramis is now walking around the tree, poking his sword between the branches. “I don’t think they’re ripe yet,” he sounds disappointed. Agnes could have told him that, she’s lived in the country all her life. But he is jittery, full of a restless energy, and as long as he’s occupied, he’s not in her way. She’s got to feed Henri, too.

“Ready?” He has abandoned his futile search for edible apples and is towering above her. 

“Not quite,” she says. “Henri’s hungry.”

He glances at her son, then back at her. “I’ll go water the horse, then,” he says, picks up the bucket, takes the bridle and walks off. She leans against the tree trunk and watches her Henri of royal blood drink her commoner’s milk.

“Will you tell me now? Where we’re going?”

They are continuing to the south-west, and the afternoon sun pours into the avenue like mead into a bottle. Agnes is glad of the hood. It’s hot, but it shades her face from the glare. She is sitting astride Aramis’ horse, with Henri in her arms, and Aramis is leading them into a future that she knows nothing about. She wonders if she trusts him; she’s not quite sure. She does trust him with her life, and she trusts that he won’t betray her, but that’s nothing. She doesn’t trust him like she trusted Philippe, with her mind, body and soul, with every drop of blood in her veins and with the life of her child.

“You’re going to Tours,” he says. 

“To Tours?” The cry tears from her throat despite herself. Aramis shushes her, puts his hand on her knee, recollects himself and puts it on her arm instead, soothing her.

“Don’t, Agnes.”

She is shaking. This is all too much, she can’t take any more of it, surely Aramis would not be so cruel as to exile her to a place so far away from all that she ever knew. To a place so far away from her husband’s grave.

“Shh…” Aramis strokes her arm, her shoulder. “Agnes, calm down.”

“I can’t go to Tours,” she chokes at last. Her voice is clogged with tears. “What is there for me in Tours.”

“A life,” Aramis says. “I’ve got a cousin there-”

“A cousin?”

“A cousin-germane. That’s not important. What’s important is I’ve written to her. She’ll take care of you. Of you and of Henri.”

“How do you expect me to get to Tours?”

“You’ll go to Sevres. Someone will meet you there.”

“Someone?” her voices rises to a shrill scream. There are too many someones there, too many strangers in whose hands she is expected to put her life, and her son’s.

“He’s an abbé. He’s trustworthy. I sent a letter to him as well. Agnes. Please. I would not place you in the hands of anyone whom I didn’t trust with my own life. You know that, don’t you?”

She nods. What else is she to do? The fabric of her life has been torn apart, shredded, and Aramis is the only thread that weaves between her past and her future.

They pass Javel in the early evening and reach the bank of the Seine before nightfall. The river sweeps southward here, as Aramis explains, and then back north. “Sevres is on the other side of the sweep,” he tells her as he reaches up to take Henri from her fatigued arms. He puts the baby down carefully and helps her dismount. “You will cross the river tomorrow and we’ll find someone to convey you and Henri to Sevres. Merchants’ carts are going that way all the time, someone is bound to take you with them.”

She is too tired to eat, but Aramis makes her. “For Henri’s sake,” he says, smiling at her and at her son, and this is the first time she saw him smile since they set off on that pilgrimage. The inn is teeming with bodies, loud, sweaty, pushy, grunting, screaming, arguing, drinking, spitting, and she has seen more people in the last few days than ever before in her entire life. Her eyes hurt, from facing the sun for so long or from unshed tears, she isn’t sure. She’s very aware of Aramis sitting so close to her, with Henri the only barrier between them. She longs for fresh air, for solitude. She longs for her husband.

He escorts her upstairs, shows her into the room, opening the door for her and carrying the small bundle that holds her entire possessions. Agnes’ heart booms like the church bell in her parish church, its beat reverberating through her whole body. There is only one room for all three of them, and after she saw the crowds swarming through the inn, she is amazed that Aramis has been able to secure even that. She wonders, abstractedly, how much money he’s spent on her so far.

She wonders how she will repay him.

“I’ve got to see after the horse,” he says after he's put down her bundle, taken off her cape and folded it over the only chair in the room. Agnes is holding Henri to her chest.

“I’ll be back soon,” he continues. “Bolt the door and don’t open it to anyone who isn’t me.”

He’s gone with a swish of his cloak, and she’s left with a swirl of thoughts. 

Agnes is sitting on the bed when he knocks, and she gets up, lets go of Henri’s hand, walks to the door, opens it, turns around and walks back to the bed, wordlessly. She doesn’t look at Aramis. She’s looking at Henri, searching for Philippe’s soul in the child’s features.

She isn’t looking at Aramis as he disrobes in the corner, ridding himself of his sword, the sheaths, the daggers, the pistols, the belts, the doublet. She can hear every single item clink and rustle as he puts them away, and she’s keeping track of how undressed he will be when he finally comes to sit by her side. She thinks back of what he said to her, the memories of his words slipping through her mind like rosary beads through her fingers: of not staying alone, of finding love again. Of death being the release from the vows of marriage.

The straw mattress is too hard to dip when he sits down. “Agnes?” he says, gently and almost hesitantly. “Won’t you look at me?”

She turns her face away from her son and looks at the man with whom she is to share the bed tonight. The candle that smears long shadows onto the wall casts his features in a golden hue. He is, she’s got to admit, a beautiful sight to behold. Her eyes know that, but her heart doesn’t care.

Aramis takes her hand in his. “I know you’ve suffered enough. More than enough,” he says, stroking the back of her hand with his thumb. “And I am sorry, truly, I am. This is the best I could do on such short notice. And believe me, it was very short notice,” he smiles. “I thought all of it up in the time it took me to ride from the barracks to Constance’s house.”

Agnes leans in and kisses him on the mouth like he was her husband.

Aramis flinches.

He doesn’t push her away, he’s still holding her hand in his, but the distance between them is suddenly much greater. Agnes is shaking, with relief and with shame. 

“Don’t,” he says softly.

She touches the sleeve of his fine shirt and glances at the weapons and garments he deposited by the chair, a musketeer’s expensive equipment, thinks of the magnificent horse in the stable.

“Because I am not a fine enough lady for you,” she says. She, mother to a king, spurned by a soldier.

“No!” he sounds genuinely shocked. “Because you don’t want this.”

Agnes chokes out a sob of relief and Aramis grins. “Porthos was right,” he says, and there’s laughter in his voice. “Two days with me, and you’re completely worn out. Go to sleep, Agnes.” He leans in and kisses her on the forehead. “You’ve got another long day ahead of you.”

She’s still shaking when she climbs into bed. But then she gathers Henri close, pulls Aramis’ cloak over herself and her son and listens to her heartbeat slowing down. Henri wraps his fingers around one of hers, his grip strong and confident. On the other side of the room, Aramis is sitting in the chair with his hat pulled over his eyes and his pistol across his knees. He is, she realises as distorted images and ideas that precede sleep creep into her mind, truly a king’s musketeer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologise for the lamentable lack of musketeers so far. They'll all make an appearance in the next part, and it's going to be a happy one.


	4. Melancholia Erotica

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: language, juvenile humour, puns, Tom Swifties, seriously silly innuendos, anachronisms, I’mverysorry.
> 
> Aramis’ characterisation in this is influenced by the novel to a greater extent than in the previous parts.

Ah, Paris! The most glorious, the most magnificent city in all Christendom. Its life pulsates through its streets and alleys as if they were the veins of a majestic creature of Old. Paris is the Leviathan, it is the Babel and, Aramis has to admit, the Sodom of France. He is never happier than when he passes the city gate after a long sojourn in the country. His Majesty’s court was taking the waters in Forges for what seemed like eons, even though Aramis knows it was only a few weeks of rustic misery and mind-numbing ennui. The rush of blood at the sight of the proud erection that is the cathedral of Our Lady is almost as powerful as the one that surges through him in the throes of combat. Or, Aramis smiles and shifts in his saddle, in the arms of a beautiful lady.

He wonders if the hour is too late to pay his beloved cousin-german, presently visiting from Tours, his respects. Ever since he received her letter, together with a rose-scented handkerchief, he has been thrown into a state of unrest so tempestuous that he found it quite impossible to participate in the nightly frolics with Silenus into which his comrades so gaily threw themselves.

He wonders how late the hour is. Perhaps not too late yet to see his cousin. Athos, Porthos, d’Artagnan and himself are the rear guard of the cavalcade, the King is long arrived in his palace. If Aramis were to leave now, he might even be openly admitted to her salon and wouldn’t have to sneak in like a thief in the night.

“I wonder if the tenth hour is long gone yet,” he says conversationally.

Even without looking at Porthos, he feels him grin.

“I think it is,” Athos says in a voice devoid of any expression. “It’s long since sunset.”

As if on cue, the air comes alive with the sound of church bells. “It’s midnight,” d’Artagnan chimes in, quite unnecessarily, as Aramis finds.

“If I hurry,” Aramis says, “I can make it to midnight mass.”

Porthos bursts out laughing.

Occasionally, Aramis thinks grimly, riding on in determined silence, his friend has all too much penetration.

“Your cousin, eh?” Porthos says over the rim of the wine flagon that all but disappears in his large hand. He is seated across Aramis at an aged oak table in a tavern that serves a Bordeaux wine that is barely watered down.

“Cousin-german,” Aramis says in a far-away voice.

“I think I once saw the fair lady.”

“Not as fair as you’d think,” Aramis says darkly.

Porthos remains unabashed. “Gone Palm Sunday, at the church of St. Leu. She pulled a lace handkerchief out of her muff and dropped it, quite accidentally, by the confessional. It looked remarkably like the one that I saw you with in Forges.”

“Porthos is right.” Athos has snuck up noiselessly like a jungle cat, with his faithful cadet d’Artagnan close at his heels. “I seem to remember you picked up the handkerchief and handed it back to the lady, but not without pressing it to your lips first.”

Aramis quirks his mouth in what he hopes is a haughty smile and shakes his head at this exhibition of puerile high spirits.

“Was it the lady I saw you make love to on Corpus Christi in the Luxembourg gardens?” D’Artagnan doesn’t wish to be left out of the conversation.

“It most certainly was not!” Aramis is too indignant at the suggestion to maintain his aloof demeanour.

“Certainly not,” echoes Porthos. “Our brother’s esteemed cousin is too fine a lady to expose herself in such a manner.”

“Expose herself to gossip,” adds Athos, who has picked up d’Artagnan’s confused gaze.

D’Artagnan looks from one man to the other, as though attempting to ascertain if they are amusing themselves at his expense. They’re not, Aramis could tell him that. They’re amusing themselves at Aramis’ expense and he’s not sure if he’s in the mood. There unrest has followed him from Forges to Paris, an infantry of ants is scuttling to and fro under his skin, making his fingers twitch, and he catches himself carding his fingers through his hair as though untangling its knots might untangle his thoughts.

“I should have attended midnight mass after all,” he mutters. “I believe the cleansing effect of prayer would’ve made me feel another man.”

“There’s nothing wrong with the kind of man you are, my dear Aramis,” says Athos. He is seated by Aramis’ side, pressed up against him from thigh to shoulder. D’Artagnan is sharing the bench with Porthos and sharing the flagon with Athos. There are not many men with whom Athos is willing to share his drink, and d’Artagnan has been admitted to the honour without any of them quite knowing how. He doesn’t realise how fortunate he is; there are men amongst the musketeers who have been vying for Athos’ attention for years. Aramis himself considers a favourite of Fortuna to enjoy such delightful intercourse with a man so reserved as Athos. Presently, he cannot agree with Athos’ assessment, however. He’d give a lot to be permitted to shed the skin in which he is sheathed, it’s too tight to contain his boiling blood, his humours. He was quite sincere when he spoke of the cleansing effect of prayer. He wishes to lose himself in something greater than himself. He wishes he could, like Saint Francis, occupy himself wholly with Jesus, to bear Jesus in his heart, Jesus in his mouth, Jesus in his ears, Jesus in his eyes, Jesus in his hands, Jesus in the rest of his members.

“Pardon?” Aramis is torn from his reverie by Porthos, who dangles a wine flagon in front of his face. He realises that Porthos was talking and he wasn’t attending. He reaches for the flagon mechanically and puts it to his lips.

“You are in a queer mood tonight, Aramis,” Athos comments quietly, with a probing sidelong glance. “Are you quite well?”

“I am.” He’s not sure if he likes Athos being solicitous or if he’d rather be left alone to get lost in his own thoughts.

“I think Aramis is in need of a diversion,” Porthos says. “D’Artagnan, see to the fire, we need more light. All these candles do is make the shadows darker and drip sperm all over the table.” He points to the white patches sprinkled generously over the dark wood.”

D’Artagnan kneels obediently, picks up a faggot and pokes it into the flames that flare up at once, crackling merrily. Porthos is already shuffling a deck of cards in his practiced fingers. Aramis sighs.

“Please don’t count me in.” He is well aware of the look that passes between Athos and Porthos, it only serves to increase his irritation. With another sigh, he decides to leave the company; the walk home might help clear his head. His hand is already reaching for his hat that rests on the table before him and his mouth is all but forming words of excuse and goodnight when a serving girl steps to them and, leaning across, puts another flagon of wine before Aramis. His hand changes its parabola mid-motion, without consulting his brain, and picks up the drink rather than his hat. As he carries it to his mouth, he watches Porthos watching the girl with an expression on his face that shows an idea is forming.

“Melons,” Porthos says, slamming the flat of his hand on the table.

D’Artagnan stares at him and then shoots a furtive glance at the girl who is already turning away.

“Good idea,” Athos says. He empties his bottle with his head thrown back and points his finger at Porthos. “You get them.”

Porthos pushes his large frame from behind the table. “Come on, d’Artagnan,” he says, resting his hand on the other man’s shoulder. “You can help carry ‘em.”

The air hangs thick with shouts and cheers, it vibrates with bloodlust, with passions too feral to be contained. Aramis’ blood is singing in his veins, a potent mixture of humour and wine. He’s lightheaded and focused at the same time, both caught up in the ecstasy and detached from the danger of the moment. Porthos stands ten yards away, and Aramis is staring into the black and merciless eye of his arquebus. Like a soldier in no-man’s land, like a man hanging from a cliff, like a rider clinging to a bolting horse, he is suspended between life and death for one breathless, dizzying heartbeat.

Porthos grins. He closes one eye and looks down the barrel of his pistol. He adjusts the angle, takes a deep draught from the flagon in his hand and-

his arm shakes. It’s a miniscule movement, barely there, but to Aramis it’s as if Porthos has waved his arm at him and his body reacts instantly. He ducks, pulls in his head and his shoulders, and throws himself to the side, just as the ball that was meant for the melon on his head buries itself in the wooden pillar in the place where his neck was a split second ago. He can hear the multitude erupt in one scream, he sees Athos manfully swallow the ejaculation that rises up from the depth of his soul. Porthos sways, horror-struck. 

D’Artagnan dashes forward to catch him, but slips and grabs a table for support.

The melon has smashed to the ground, sending red flesh flying to all sides, like blood, like brain matter.

Aramis picks himself up, twirls his moustache, throws his head back, opens his arms wide and takes a bow. The crowd’s euphoria at a show well performed is as palpable as one of the Aristotelean elements, and he immerses himself in it as if in the waves of the ocean, letting it swallow him whole.

The scream that rose to a piercing crescendo comes crashing back down like the roll of thunder, reverberating through Aramis from the soles of his feet to the top of his head. His whole body vibrates again, but this time with bliss. He knocks back the drink that someone holds out to him, pats someone else on the back and joins his friends who have not yet unfrozen from the tableau into which shock has sent them.

Aramis puts an arm around Porthos’ back and clasps Athos’ shoulder. He doesn’t have another arm to spare, so he nods at d’Artagnan and smiles in heartfelt delight. “Don’t stand there a gaping ass,” he says. “Come and join us. And bring the bottle.”

D’Artagnan moves like a puppet with tangled strings. “Perhaps next time you should consider making the shot sober,” he says to Porthos. Aramis feels Porthos’ muscles tense.

“No,” he says, smiles at Porthos and pats him on the back. “The day I can’t tell he’s going to miss is the day that I don’t deserve mercy.”

Athos makes a small sound that could be a suppressed groan or a suppressed laugh and raises a flagon to his lips in silent salute. D’Artagnan is still glaring at them disapprovingly, but Aramis doesn’t pay him any heed, because Porthos leans in and, in a voice that’s meant only for his ears, says: “Thank you.”

And Aramis’ blood calms like the sea after a heavy storm. He smiles with a smile that is meant for Porthos only, leans in likewise and whispers: “De rien.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It had to be done, and I couldn’t resist. I’m afraid a lot of the language is probably anachronistic and belongs to a later century, but I’m no expert on early 17th century vernacular, alas. But they would be speaking French anyway, so the point is somewhat moot.
> 
> Still, Shakespeare’s plays were only a couple of decades old at that point, and, as we know, he delighted in double entendres; there’s also Rabelais’ Gargantua, which I have on good authority was a popular read at that time because of its crude humour and general irreverence. I liked the idea of playing with Athos and Porthos teasing Aramis through innuendo, and of blurring – in linguistic terms – the lines between the harmless and the obscene. 
> 
> The expressions are mostly lifted from 19th century literature. My absolute favourite ever is “I devoured the ejaculation” from Charlotte Brontë’s Villette, uttered by Lucy Snowe of all people: the dowdiest, most spinsterish of all literary spinsters. The “gaping ass” is courtesy Lord Peter Wimsey. It’s fair to say that the meaning has somewhat changed in the not 100 years since the books were written. “Sperm candles” were a thing, albeit about 100 years later: they were made from sperm whale wax. “Faggots” refers of course to bundles of sticks, derived from – very appropriately – the Old French “fagot”. A word that the Musketeers might actually have used! The “Jesus” bit is a quotation from Thomas of Celano’s biography of St. Francis, Aramis might have reasonably been familiar with it.


	5. Chamber Play

There are hands around her neck. She can feel the thumbs pressing into the hollow of her throat, the fingers digging into the soft flesh on the sides, and she can has to force breath for breath down into her lungs. She tips her head back, sucking in mouthfuls of crisp evening air. Her throat swells with every heave of her blood, until it is nigh impossible to swallow. She rushes through the door of her hotel like a woman possessed, clawing at her throat with nails that leave bloody marks. Kitty comes running towards her and curtsies hastily. Her usually vacant bovine stare is sharpened with fear, and the sight makes Anne’s blood boil. She slaps the girl, hard, and delights in the way her head snaps back.

“Pack my trunks!” she hisses, her vision misted over with rage. “Don’t just stand there, you useless hussy! Go on, move!”

Kitty hitches up her petticoats and scurries away, and Anne, rubbing her neck to ease the pressure of blood, strides into her boudoir. She pulls out a filigree silver key from her bodice, opens a hidden drawer in the mahogany chest and begins to empty it with shaking fingers. Rage has seeped into her blood, turning it into yellow bile. She is ridden by a thousand Furies who have come upon her thundering like an army of Polish hussars, trampling everything in their wake, the roar of their wings filling her head with white noise. She has to drown it out or else she shall go mad, and, barely mistress of herself, throws open the casket on her dressing table, pulls out a poignard with a golden haft and a sharp thin blade, and slashes across the back of her hand. She watches the blood spill through the gash in her skin as the purifying effect of bleeding rids her of the bile. 

Only then, the pounding in her head, her neck subsides. Her ability to breathe returns and with it her vision, and as Anne lifts her eyes, her gaze locks on the man who is filling the doorway like the angel of Hell.

Anne doesn’t cry out. She bites her lip until she tastes blood.

Aramis smiles. “Good evening, Milady,” he says. His voice is low and his enunciation polished. “We’ve never been formally introduced, but I trust you will forgive me for invading your private chambers in this irregular manner.”

Anne smiles likewise, with her lips and her teeth, like a tigress. “From what I hear, M. Aramis, you are quite accustomed to invading ladies’ private chambers, in any manner you can think of.” Her hand, the one that is not dripping blood, is groping behind her, scuttling across the table, until her fingers close around the smooth butt of her pistol.

“Indeed,” he admits. “But it is usually with a different object in mind.” His eyes are like graphite and his smile could cut diamonds. He is standing in the door with his feet slightly apart and his arquebus slung over his shoulder.

Anne’s arm comes up in a flash of silver and ivory. Aramis doesn’t so much as blink at the sight of the muzzle pointing at his chest. 

“You’ve made a mistake coming here, Monsieur,” she says. “You will not leave this chamber alive.”

He raises his eyebrows, takes off his hat and presses it to his chest with the merest hint of a bow. “Ah, but then you would be left with a body to dispose. Could you really spirit me away before nightfall? I should warn you, I’m much heavier than I look.”

The rage that coursed through her minutes ago returns, but it doesn’t shoot to Anne’s head. It pools down, liquid fire that seethes in her stomach and pours heavily into her cunt. What she feels for that man is not desire, and yet she would fuck him raw. She’d fuck anyone here and now; do anything to make the swelling stop. Where they rub against each other, the insides of her thighs are sticky already, she could simply hitch up her petticoats and ride him on the floor of her boudoir.

She can’t do that, but the boil of her blood is too much, she has got to ease it lest she should swoon with the pressure of it.

Anne fires. It takes only a few seconds for the smoke to settle, and he’s standing, unmoved and unmovable, in the same pose as before, fury sleeting off him like vapour off ice. The ball, as Anne well knows, has hit the wooden frame level with his head. Anne drops the pistol and wraps her hand around her throat protectively. He hasn’t moved, yet what she reads in his gaze is enough to have her choking again.

The sound of the pistol shot has alarmed Kitty, who hurries in from Anne’s bedroom. Anne’s rage hits her bodily even before her hand does. The girl stumbles out backward, and Anne makes a vow to kick her out onto the street in the hope that she will be selling herself to drunkards and vagrants before long.

“I can see, Milady, that your charming manner does not extend to your household,” Aramis says, his eyes on the retreating soubrette. 

Anne grinds her teeth so hard that pain shoots up her jaw all the way to her ears. “If you’ve got a message for me from Olivier, tell me and leave,” she snarls at him.

She sees him frown and shift his weight, and it’s the first sign of a mortal man’s weakness that he’s shown since he entered her house. Her husband’s name, his real name, makes him uneasy, and Anne knows why: it speaks of an intimacy, of a life and a love shared; it renders her as vulnerable in his eyes as if she were naked before him, and she knows how to use that nakedness to her advantage.

“If Olivier has something to say to me,” she says, dwelling on the syllables of her husband’s name and purring the ‘r’ in her throat, “he should have come himself. Why send you?”

“He didn’t.” Aramis commits a mistake and he knows it the moment the words leave his mouth. He has a secret that he’s kept from his friends, and he’s shared that secret with her. “He doesn’t know I’m here,” Aramis adds, and he lowers his arquebus from his shoulder and steps fully into the room. Anne moves, too, walking towards him with slow, purposeful steps. She’s got to be careful, he’s not Olivier, with his deep, blind passion for her, nor is he d’Artagnan with his youthful infatuation. This man is familiar with the arsenal of feminine weapons, has seen them wielded for his benefit in a thousand different variations. If she wants to defeat him, she’s got to be something new.

“What is it that you want from me, Aramis?” She knows that he keeps himself from dropping his gaze to watch her breathe. This is not how she will get to him; he’s not a man likely to be seduced by the mere sight of a décolleté, no matter how artfully presented. But it gives them both something to do to occupy the short time during which they are both gathering their wits and adjusting their lines of defence and attack.

Aramis leans in, and she isn’t sure if it’s to kiss her or to tear at her throat with his teeth like a rabid dog. “You have brought misery and pain upon two of my dearest friends,” he whispers. “Mind you don’t ever do that again.”

Never breaking eye contact, he sinks down to his knees before her. Anne stares down at him; surely not even he would be so brazen as to-

Aramis picks up the pistol she dropped, gets back up and puts it in her hand. “Yours, Milady.” There’s something very dark in his gaze, and it’s something that she’s familiar with. She raises the pistol, presses the muzzle to his bare chest where his coat and shirt are gaping open and slides it up to his throat. There is no shot left, he knows it, and she pushes it hard into the soft flesh under his chin and pulls the trigger. Watches the gleam of darkness in his eyes.

Aramis pushes the barrel away, grabs her wrist and swirls her around until she’s with her back to him. For one dazed heartbeat, she thinks he’s going to throw her down and fuck her over her dressing table, but he merely shoves her towards her chest.

“You were packing,” he says. “Don’t forget: go away, Milady. You might count on Athos’ mercy, or perhaps believe in the vestiges of his love for you, but I’m not burdened by any such sentimentalities. And I will do anything,” he leans in and she feels his breath on her neck, “ _anything_ to protect my friends. You need to understand that if you want to live.”

The heat of his breath scorches the tender skin of her neck for two more heartbeats, and then he’s gone. She doesn’t turn around to watch him leave. She stands with her hands clenched and her neck throbbing, and she knows with bone-deep conviction that her fate will be decided in neither Spain nor England. “Next time,” she whispers with a hand at her throat, “the pistol will be loaded.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: I couldn’t quite go there (yet), but I’m tempted to have Aramis sleep with Milady. After the Cardinal’s mistress and the Queen of France, Athos’ wife would be the logical choice for an ill-advised fuck. Surely, Aramis would go for the hat-trick?
> 
> Anne is of course Anne de Breuil, Milady’s (possibly) real name. I’m using book canon again: for Milady’s characterisation and for equipping her with a lady’s maid, who doesn’t exist in the miraculously servant-free TV verse, but simply has to exist in a lady’s household.
> 
> The "yellow bile", or "chole", is one of the Hippocratic humours.


End file.
